[RFI] WOW!!!!!!!

[Pete Smith]

At 09:01 AM 3/9/02 -0600, Jon Ogden wrote:
...
>Not only that, but RFI is caused by an arcing situation somewhere.
>
>An arcing situation involves a discharge of electricity.
>
>Electricity spent in discharging is less they have to deliver to customers.
>
>So it is an efficiency and cost benefit to them to fix the RFI problems.
>Every little problem may not be very much in terms of power grid efficiency.
>But if it is widespread, you add all those up and it most certainly does
>have an impact.  These guys want to provide power with the least loss of
>that power from the substation to your home.  Well, if they lose some of
>that power in arcs, they are wasting some power and hence losing some money.

I'm not sure how persuasive that is.  Most of the arcing that has been
found around my place has been between pieces of hardware that are not
actually connected to the primary conductor.  Instead, the voltages
involved are induced in brackets, washers, eye-bolts, insulator mounts,
etc. by the field around the conductor.  Differentials result from
differing distances from the conductor, and differing sizes and shapes of
conductive objects.

A case in point -- a very loud arc on the pole just before my transformer
was traced to the bracket supporting a lightning arrestor.  The bracket was
originally held by two lag screws, but a woodpecker had undermined one of
them, and the loose lag screw was arcing to the bracket.  The lineman told
me that for this reason these brackets are now only secured by one bolt. 

73, Pete N4ZR

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